A client device, such as a digital video recorder or a personal video recorder, can receive video content in the form of broadcast and/or interactive television entertainment and information, and in the form of on-demand entertainment, such as movies. A digital or personal video recorder includes a hard disk memory so that a viewer can record the video content and other content of interest to the viewer. The hard disk memory in digital or personal video recorder has limited space to store the video content for future reference by a viewer.
A hard disk memory in a digital or personal video recorder system is managed to keep recorded programs, such as movies and television shows, that a viewer wants to save for viewing at a later time. The hard disk memory is also managed to delete video content from the hard disk memory to provide memory resources for recording new or additional video content. Conventional video recorder systems keep recorded video content until memory space is needed to record additional video content, or for a defined period of time.
However, conventional video recorder systems do not manage recorded content based on the many different ways in which viewers watch recorded programs. A viewer may want to ensure that a program is not deleted until the program has been watched, and only then have the program deleted as memory resources are needed. Further, a viewer may watch only a portion of a program intending to watch the remainder of the program, or another portion of the program, at a later time. Again, the viewer may want to ensure that the program is not deleted until after having watched other portions of the program.
Accordingly, for television-based entertainment and information systems, there is a need for recorded content management policies that correspond with the many different ways in which viewers watch recorded programs.